On Saturday, the St Joseph’s Horse and Pony Club, based in west Finglas, held a well-attended family day at the stables where around 75 horses are housed by the club’s 100 members. Part of the day was devoted to a show jumping event and prize giving.
The current location is under threat if the proposed Draft Dunsink Urban Area Plan which includes provision for a vast 18,000 unit and mainly high-rise apartment development goes ahead as approved by Fingal County Council.
Concerns and opposition from communities in Finglas and Blanchardstown which will be impacted have attracted much attention and hundreds of submissions have been made on the plan. The vast majority of the submissions which were made before the limited July 31 deadline are highly critical of the Dunsink proposal.
The opposition has forced members of parties on Fingal County Council, all of which backed the plan when it was put to a vote earlier in the year, to pay attention to the objections. Few people living on the Finglas side of the development site were aware of the plan until attention was drawn to it by community activist Stephen Redmond.
On Fingal County Council, the plan has been challenged by National Party Councillor Patrick Quinlan who has pointed out that the plan itself refers to demographic projections which imply that the majority of the housing units will be taken by immigrants.
Many of the submissions are from local sports clubs including Erin’s Isle GAA in Finglas, St. Brigid’s GAA in Castleknock, Coolmine rugby club and others who have pointed to the impact of the plan on already constrained sporting and amenity lands in the general area.
St Joseph’s Horse and Pony Club represents a tradition of horse ownership among Finglas people which goes back generations to when Finglas was based around what had been a rural village on the outskirts of the city. The old village and the older housing estates are increasingly dwarfed by expanding high rise apartment blocks which have sprung up on all sides.
In its submission to Fingal County Council, the club Chair Colm Kieran states that the club focuses on “responsible horse ownership, animal welfare, and giving young people in this area a structured and supervised introduction to horsemanship”.
With regard to the proposal for a ‘new city,’ the club points out that it is an “established club and a local stakeholder in the lands within and adjoining the Plan area, where our members keep, graze and exercise horses. We are not asking the Council to create something new. We are asking that a club this community depends on is not written out of a plan for the very lands that surround it.
“The Draft Plan accepts that cultural heritage is not only what can be seen and touched, but also the practices and associations that give a place its identity, and how communities have used and moved through a landscape over time. We would like to point out that this describes exactly what our members do here.”
In reference to the Council’s own name-checking of the National Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage, “which encompasses social practices, traditional craftsmanship, and knowledge,” it says that “horsemanship as practised in this area falls squarely within that description. It is a body of practical knowledge concerning the care and handling of animals, passed between generations within families and within this community, and it is sustained by the use of these particular lands.”
The submission also points to the broader positive influence that the club has had within the community including an affiliated youth club. It has provided a valuable outlet and facility for young people at a time when there are many malign forces at work. Five of the club members have completed courses at Maynooth University and each obtained a Level 7 qualification in Youth Studies.
Other members have qualifications and certification in riding instruction and horse care. Their knowledge and expertise is passed on to the children who have horses. The submission makes the point – which can also be applied to all of the other clubs and groups impacted by the Plan – that while the proposal for an 18,000 unit development promises that it will include provision for sports and other cultural activities, such facilities are already here.
They are provided on a voluntary basis by people within the existing communities which were not given notice of the massive development, nor consulted while it was being drafted, and were only allowed a short window in which to make submissions on a plan that will turn those communities upside down after the plan had been drafted and approved by elected Councillors in Fingal.
None of the Councillors for the Finglas area on Dublin City Council were consulted nor it seems did any of those in Fianna Fáil, Sinn Féin, the Social Democrats and People Before Profit make any representations to their party colleagues on Fingal who voted for the proposal.